Music News: Morrissey ‘very seriously’ considering running for mayor of London

Morrissey performs last summer at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. (Leah Garaas/MPR)

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Morrissey says he’s “very seriously” considering running for mayor of London on a platform of animal rights. “Animal welfare groups cannot persist simply in order to continue to persist,” writes Morrissey on the True to You website. “There must be a governmental voice against the hellish and archaic social injustice allotted to animals in the United Kingdom simply because those animals do not speak English.” (Billboard)

Remembering three music notables

On Thursday, local multi-instrumentalist Brian Gallagher died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism. He’s best known for playing with Prince and the New Power Generation (that’s his sax solo on “Sexy MF”) and with funk band Greazy Meal. (Star Tribune)

Singer Gayle McCormick has died of cancer at age 67. She’s best-remembered for singing lead on Smith’s 1969 version of Burt Bacharach’s “Baby It’s You,” a top five hit for the group. (Billboard)

Prior to the Who’s Thursday night show at Madison Square Garden, they paid tribute to the late David Bowie via a statement projected onto a screen. “Nearly every year at MSG,” read the statement in part, “he sat in the first row right beside the stage. We’ll miss our friend, a true icon of music and art, and a brilliant innovator.” (Rolling Stone)

The Wall heads to the opera house

Roger Waters is writing the libretto for an opera based on Pink Floyd’s The Wall, with new music by composer Julien Bilodeau. The opera will premiere at Opéra de Montréal next year. (Rolling Stone)

Majical Cloudz flote awai

Montreal indie-pop band Majical Cloudz are calling it quits after six years. It’s an amicable split between Devon Welsh and Matt Otto, who call the breakup “the completion of something very positive” and plan to move on to other projects after a goodbye show in Montreal on March 11. (Pitchfork)

Grammy Museum opens in Mississippi

The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles has opened a satellite museum in Cleveland — Cleveland, Mississippi, that is. Billboard has a first look at the new museum, which opened Saturday and spotlights the music of the Mississippi Delta.

New milestone for the 1975

The 1975 have their first number one album. I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware debuted this week at the top of the Billboard 200.

Today’s news from Utah

Flavor Flav was in Salt Lake City this week to visit his brother, the athletic director at a local high school. After paying a surprise visit to the school, Flav went on a Salt Lake City TV station Saturday morning to deliver a weather report. Watch the weather report at Pitchfork.

The police chief of Pleasant Grove, Utah, says that the driver of a car stopped for speeding would likely not have been given a ticket even if the car didn’t happen to be carrying music legend Gladys Knight, who treated Officer Paul Rogerson to a rendition of “Happy Birthday” when she learned it was his birthday — and posed for a picture with Rogerson and his wife, who was riding along in the squad car since Rogerson had to work on his big day. Knight was on the way to a rehearsal for an upcoming performance with a Mormon choir, and Rogerson let the driver of her car off with a warning. (Billboard)